At the end of the year 1893, just at the close of his turn of office, the Viceroy, Lord Lansdowne, came to Burma. With Lady Lansdowne, he visited Mandalay, went up the river as far as Bhamo, and by launch through the First Defile to Sinbo. In His Excellency’s party were Sir Henry Brackenbury,[233] Military Member of Council; Sir John Ardagh, Private Secretary; Mr. W. J. Cuningham,[234] Foreign Secretary; and once more Lord William Beresford as Military Secretary. The administration of the Kachin Hills and the Chinese boundary was discussed on the spot by the Viceroy with the Chief Commissioner and his local officers. At Bhamo the Viceroy held a Durbar on the house-boat in which the Chief Commissioner was wont to travel in comfort, if not in luxury. Kachin Duwas came in crowds and laid spears and elephant tusks and embroidered cloths at His Excellency’s feet, receiving more valuable gifts in return. On shore weird Kachin dances were performed mid unseasonable rain, which damped the revels. It was a pity, for at the best a Kachin dance is a depressing ceremony, something like “Here we go round the mulberry bush,” played by tired children. At Mandalay, in the golden-pillared Western Hall of Audience, a fitting setting for so brilliant a scene, another Durbar was held, glittering with uniforms of British officers and gay with the bright Court dresses of Burman and Shan notables. This cold season I toured in the hills for some weeks and in the pleasantest company. Captain Bower,[235] having covered himself with glory by hunting down the murderer of Dalgleish and earned fresh laurels by his adventurous march across Tibet, came over to gather honey for the Intelligence hive. Mr. George, who made all the bandobast[236] for the tour, was more at home among Kachins than any man of his time. Starting from Waing-maw, we marched inland to Sima, the scene of a fierce struggle not many months before, where Morton met a soldier’s death and Captain Lloyd[237] won the Victoria Cross. So close to the border that in the first Boundary Convention, concluded when our diplomatists were in great awe of China’s puissance, it was assigned to our neighbours, Sima was a little outpost in the hills. Surrounded by a stockade, a ditch, and barbed-wire entanglements, it was strong enough to resist any probable attack. Officers and men were housed in huts of mud or mat, stores and ammunition in sheds of corrugated iron. Long since these primitive posts have been replaced by substantial forts built on scientific plans. A line of them holds the frontier and dominates the hills. From Sima we struck northward to Sadôn, then our farthest outpost. We strolled at leisure; along forest paths up and down hill; across clear mountain-streams, sometimes at a ford, sometimes by a swaying bridge hastily made of bamboos with a carpet of long grass, sometimes on a raft or rude dugout; through thriving Kachin villages perched on crests of hills, where